radial arm saws

[LESNPAM]

HI ALL
im new to this forum and need some advice on radial arm saws
how safe is a dewalt when rip cutting my only (bad ) experience f using a
radial arm saw was when a piece of ply i was cutting kicked back after extracting alot of ply from my fingers i got rid of it but i have recently been told that the dewalt machines have a anti kickback pawl the one i was using was a very old machine that did not hve this facilty
regards
les

 

[Streepips]

Kick back is not unknown in these machines when ripping but rarely happens with a properly set up machine and sharp blade.
I would be surprised if you had a kickback whilst crosscutting, because its usually "climb" rather than kickback thats the problem when the blade gets traction rather than cutting.
Again this is usually caused by poor setup and blunt blades.

 

[mailee]

Yes Les most if not all of the modern radial arm saws have an anti kickback pawl that can be lowered behind the blade guard. I had one on mine but removed it as I only use mine for cross cutting. HTH. :wink:

 

[Landy]

I have used mine for ripping but find it didn’t feel right (wood feeding through the blade) but no probs cross cut.

One of the best things I did was to chuck the blade for a decent one and did it make a difference with nice clean cuts but not tried ripping with it.

 

[neilyweely]

I have one too, but would never use it to rip.
When I bought it it had a positive rake blade in it, and every time I made a cut it bit into the wood to such a degree that it would seize the motor.
So I bought a newer blade, with neutral rake (or very slight positive) and it is fine now. However, I believe blade choice to be VERY important with these machines, of course it is always important, but maybe more so with RAS.

Mine has little teeth behind the blade guard that are an anti kickback device, just not sure it would work that well.

HTH

Neil

 

[LESNPAM]

HI
many thanks to all for the replies have decided to opt fr saw bench till i can afford a combination machine
best regards
les